"Wow, look at all the four and five star reviews!" you say. "Why should I listen to the guy who gave it two stars?" you say. Let me tell you:
Boiling.
There.
First, you oughtta know I've eaten BBQ all over the place, a few places in Texas and Oklahoma, a few more in Memphis, and an enormous amount over the years in Kansas City, not to mention all the places I've hit in travels here and there. I've even had a bit of that South Carolina BBQ some people like. The one thing all these quintessential styles have in common? Nothing is boiled, for Pete's sake.
There are those who think that the secret to moist and tender BBQ is pre-boiling the meat. It's not so much a secret as a cheap shortcut (if not a dirty trick). Yes, even a beginner can make tender BBQ that way, but a real pitmaster doesn't need to cheat.
Boiled BBQ is tender all right, so much it falls off the bone. Now people like to say they like ribs that fall off the bone, but they usually don't mean it literally. Like, if you pick up the end of a bone and lift it, it comes out clean and the meat stays on the plate. That's what you get at Leatha's.
And moist? Not so much moist as soaking wet. It's BBQ for people with no teeth. It could come in jars. Gerber's BBQ. It's like eating BBQ and drinking a tall glass of warm water at the same time. You don't walk away waddling, you walk away sloshing.
So why two stars instead of one? It was, hands down, the best boiled BBQ I've ever had. I can even see me having liked it when I was a kid before I discovered real BBQ. It's got some smoke, it's not over-seasoned, really not bad for sopping wet meat. I can see how people who have never had good BBQ might really like it. And so far, I've found no good BBQ down here in Southern Mississippi (don't get mad, locals, that's just my experience so far). Nevertheless, I wouldn't eat at Leatha's again unless somebody I was with insisted AND they were buying.
And while the BBQ is half water, everything else is half sugar. The sauce tastes like someone took a jar of Memphis style sauce and mixed it four to one with simple syrup. Somebody remarked you could make lollipops out of it, it was so sweet. That was not hyperbole or exaggeration. That was a dead accurate description.
The potato salad was incredibly sweet. Never had it that way before. The baked beans tasted like a can of Bush's honey-baked beans with a couple of tablespoons of sugar mixed in. Even the coleslaw was sweet. Actually, the coleslaw, which I usually hate, wasn't bad. The sugar covered the bitter in the cabbage, and there was none of that nasty celery seed in there. It was more a vinegar and sugar with a little salt dressing like you usually find with sliced cucumbers and onions or in a three bean salad.
Sadly, the rolls, while not sweet, were baked from sour dough that night. No, not sourdough, I mean dough that had been left out so long it went seriously sour. Ever smelled rotten bread dough? This is the first time I've ever tasted it. I hope it's not that way every time. If it is, somebody has a very wrong idea about dough fermentation.
The thing that really made me sad, though, was I loved the atmosphere. Great building and interior for a BBQ joint, relaxed, comfortable, lots of character. If you like mushy BBQ and all your sides sweet as candy, this is your place. But it isn't mine. read more